Defining the HSU Experience

Pulling insights from internal and external stakeholders, including leadership, the enrollment team, marketing team, current students, alumni, faculty, staff, and even business leaders in the area, we started to gain a better understanding of what makes Hardin-Simmons stand out in a very saturated market. 

We realized all their competitors were similar in look, feel, and messaging (even brand colors). Everyone was saying and doing the same thing, which was very safe. We saw an opportunity for HSU to stand out by doing something different: embracing and proudly owning the Christian heritage and cowboy traditions that were unique to the University.

“We are cowboys.”

That concept became the rallying cry and tagline establishing the true essence of what made Hardin-Simmons the university it is. 

But what are cowboys? Cowboys are hard workers, people who push forward through any challenge that arises. Cowboys stand up for what they believe and finish what they started. They’re responsible. They’re natural born leaders. They have grit and passion for what they do.

Cowboys aren’t defined by the dust on their boots. They’re defined by their character. 

This campaign shows that it doesn’t matter where you’re from or what you do. The cowboy spirit lives in each one of us.

We are Hardin-Simmons University.
We are cowboys.

At the same time, it was important to Northwestern to accurately document and retain student data from their marketing efforts. After losing historical data from previous campaigns, our team helped empower the client to keep and use their own accounts to produce transparent reports that informed their marketing teams, the dean, and program directors.

Over the past three years, we have continued to refine their digital campaign language and audiences to reach a higher quality and engaged student pool. Our team has also led additional projects with Northwestern, including a CRM audit that targeted best practices for tagging and tracking, SEO analysis, and website landing page audits.

The McCormick School of Engineering graduate programs emphasize excellence in education and research, where the students are exceptionally prepared for academic and professional success. From 2023 to 2024, the campaigns yielded consistent results across all programs:

• 27% increase in conversion rate
• 106% increase in click-through rate
• 109% increase in leads year over year

Leaning into Location

Based on key findings and research, we detected a post-COVID shift in high school students opting to stay in-state for their college education. Leveraging these findings, we crafted a strategy that targeted students and families within a 50-mile radius of Maryville and also pulled in nearby regions that showed searches for the programs the College was promoting.

Support for Staying in State

Numbers don’t lie: Nationwide, 86% of full-time equivalent (FTE) students attended college near their high school and 81% of those in Tennessee chose to stay in-state. With that information, we built a strategy that supported this trend and spoke directly to students who preferred staying closer to home.

Setting Parameters

That’s not to say that we were thinking small. We set parameters for the digital campaign at a 50-mile radius to incorporate out-of-state as well as local interest. We also pulled in Hoover and Birmingham as additional markets and extended our search efforts into most of Tennessee. As we evaluated results, we had the ability to extend or restrict targeting based on the ad response. 

Setting Up for Reporting Success

An additional goal of Maryville was to ensure that the data from its marketing efforts dropped into its tracking program correctly and that the analytics were set up for peak performance. We worked closely with the Maryville team to ensure proper set up and attribution for accurate results, reporting, and analysis for future evaluation.

Going the Distance

GMB provided a 12-month engagement to lead the Gardner-Webb team from insights, strategy and UI concepts through development, content migration, and go-live.

Highlighting Bulldog Nation

The new WordPress website tells the Gardner-Webb story with a strong student-centered value proposition built on a foundation of faith, service, campus beauty, safety, and 20+ Division 1 Athletics programs–providing the compelling reasons for right-fit students to choose Gardner-Webb University.

VIEW THE SITE

Partnering in a Global Pandemic

Although much of the process occurred during Covid-19, we were able to support the Gardner-Webb team by building over 1,600 pages prior to the launch in August 2020. While the Gardner-Webb team was focused on starting the fall semester amidst a pandemic, we took the lead on getting the new website launched.